My recent SmugMug customization for Michael McGinnis Photography includes a slideshow on the homepage which uses SlideshowPro for Flash to automatically pull images from one of Mike’s galleries, using the gallery rss feed. This integration between a SmugMug gallery and SlideshowPro was a little easier said than done. Creating the slideshow in Flash is a snap, thanks to SlideshowPro, but when you place the .swf on the customized SmugMug page, issues arise. Most frustratingly, everything seems fine when you preview the slideshow in Flash. The images load and everything looks great. But when you you try to view the same slideshow online, it breaks.
The solution (for me, at least) lies in properly constructing the URL for the media RSS feed. Normal SmugMug gallery feeds look something like this:
http://www.darrenhendricks.com/hack/feed.mg?Type=gallery&Data=10046805_nR5QF&format=rss200
As long as you’ve checked the box to allow external links in the SmugMug gallery settings, your images will load when you test the movie in Flash. However, when you try to publish the slideshow and display it on your SmugMug page, you’ll wonder what happened. No images!
Luckily, I found this file in SlidshowPro’s documentation: http://wiki.slideshowpro.net/SSPfl/CP-RSSFeedNotLoading
Security limitations imposed by Flash don’t allow the RSS feed to be displayed. Fortunately, a couple changes to the URL fix the problem. We need to change the URL to the following format:
http://api.smugmug.com/hack/feed.mg?Type=gallery&Data=10046805_nR5QF&format=rss200&Sandboxed=1
Note the change to “api.smugmug.com” and the addition of the “Sandboxed=1″ parameter. You may also want to add a size parameter to the URL: “&size=Original” (or Small, Large, etc).
In your SmugMug Bio, or wherever you choose to display the slideshow, a basic method of embedding the .swf file looks something like this:
<object width=”800″ height=”525″>
<param name=”movie” value=”http://www.dviso.com/slideshow/Slideshow.swf”>
<param name=”quality” value=”high”>
<param name=”wmode” value=”opaque” />
<embed src=”http://www.dviso.com/slideshow/Slideshow.swf” width=”800″ height=”525″ quality=”high” wmode=”opaque”></embed>
</object>
This may not be the only way, or the best way to get SlideshowPro for Flash working with your SmugMug gallery, but it has worked for me. Feel free to share your experiences or methods for integrating SlidshowPro with SmugMug.
Hey Darren,
Been searching for an answer to intergrating SmugMug and SSP and found your post. My situation is slight,y different… My client wants a SSP on her external website that will pull the images from her SmugMug gallery… I am familliar with SSP and have used it quite a bit, but never for rss feeds.. I have set my xml path in the component inspector exactly the same as your is listed above and changed the ‘Data’ to my clients data… when I upload everything I get “Slideshow data cannot load due to security issue” Any assistance you can provide would be appreciated.
Comment by Steve — April 13, 2010 @ 12:45 pm
Steve, in the component inspector, did you change the XML File Type to Media RSS? And in the file path, did you use “api.smugmug.com” and add the “Sandboxed=1″ parameter?
Also, make sure your client has checked “allow external links” in the gallery you’re pulling the images from.
Let me know if this helps any.
Comment by Darren — April 13, 2010 @ 1:03 pm